What do you know about metabolism ?!
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I know that if you eat small meals throughout the day you can "stoke" your metabolism. The human body is an incredible thing. when you skip meals, it tells itself it is starving. So anything you may eat during the day it "holds onto" and therefore "sticks" with you longer.
Try eating small meals throughout the day: banana for breakfast, handful of almonds mid-morning, soup/salad for lunch, apple for mid-afternoon, chicken dinner with vegetables. something like that.
Prevention.com is a great source of information. I found the following article:
http://www.prevention.com/article/0,5778,s1-4-57-145-4618-1,00.html
A Crash Course in Metabolism
Don't curse your metabolism. You need it for every breath you take.
All forms of life--from simple algae in a backyard swimming pool to your dog or cat to the human body--depend on hundreds of carefully regulated, and simultaneous, chemical reactions to stay alive.
When your body digests food, it breaks down the carbohydrates, fats, and proteins you eat into smaller compounds that are absorbed by the blood.
Carbohydrates (found primarily in fruits, vegetables, grains, potatoes, and candy, for example) break down into glucose.
Fats (from either vegetable oils like olive oil or animal fats like butter) break down into fatty acids and glycerol.
Proteins (from fish, meat, poultry, eggs, dairy food, and beans, for example) break down into amino acids.
Carbohydrates, protein, and fat contain calories. Fiber is a form of carbohydrate that produces no calories and aids in weight control by providing bulk, which makes food more filling.
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories you expend to sustain life--the energy spent to keep the heart beating, the lungs expanding, or the body humming along at a healthy 98.6 degrees F. But you also expend energy when you move--walk, run, cycle, garden, dance, chase a bus, or work out at the gym.
Both the conversion of food to energy and your body's use of that energy--your metabolism--play a key role in weight control. If you take in more energy than your body needs, you gain weight. It doesn't matter if all those extra calories came in the form of a double cheeseburger, two extra slices of garlic bread with spaghetti, a second pat of butter slapped on your mashed potatoes, or a glass or two of wine with dinner every night. Extra calories in all forms--protein, fat, carbohydrates, and alcohol--add up to weight gain.
If your body has an excess of calories from any source, it rearranges them into stores of fat and carbohydrates, to be drawn upon between meals and overnight in between fuel deliveries. If you take in more energy than you burn, you gain weight as body fat.
Other Answers:
The ways to increase it:
Eat food. That's why many people tell you to eat a lot of small meals. Temporary.
Work out. Working out raises your metabolism for a few hours after. So if you're going to eat a lot, eat right after you leave the gym! Temporary.
Gain muscle mass. Muscles take up 2.5 times LESS space than an equal weight of fat and they also permanently increase your metabolism all the time. Permanent (as long as you have those muscles)
Source(s):
My weight loss and exercise blog:
http://itsafatlife.blogspot.com
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